T  H  E 


CONNECTION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 


WITH 


SLAVERY  AND  THE  SLAVE-TRADE. 


READ  AT  THE  ANNUAL  MEETING  OF  THE  AMERICAN  ANTIQUARIAN 
SOCIETY  AT  WORCESTER,  MASS.,  OCTOBER  21,  1880. 


BY 


CHARLES    DEANE 


PRINTED    BY    CHARLES    HAMILTON. 
No.   311   MAIN   STREET. 

1886. 


LOAN  STACK 


THE  CONNECTION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  WITH 
SLAVERY  AND  THE  SLAVE-TRADE. 


I  NOW  propose  to  read  some  notes  on  a  subject  not  new, 
in  fact  rather  old,  and  I  hope  I  may  not  tire  the  patience 
of  my  hearers.  The  subject  is — The  Connection  of  Massa 
chusetts  with  the  Slave-Trade  and  with  Slavery.  Grave 
charges  hav.e  sometimes  been  made  against  Massachusetts 
in  relation  to  this  subject.  They  were  repeated  by  Jeffer 
son  Davis  in  his  message  to  the  so-called  Confederate  States, 
April  29,  1861, x  and  more  recently  they  have  been  served 
up  to  us  anew  in  a  more  florid  style  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  in  words  which  I  shall  now  take  for  my  text. 
In  a  debate  on  the  26th  of  March,  1884,  on  the  subject 
of  "Aid  to  Common  Schools,"  Mr.  Vance  of  North  Caro 
lina,  in  reply  to  a  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  after  indulg 
ing  in  some  uncomplimentary  remarks  in  reference  to  that 
State,  proceeded,  —  "A  State  that  is  more  responsible  under 
heaven  than  any  other  community  in  this  land2  for  the 
introduction  of  slavery  into  this  continent,  with  all  the 
curses  that  have  followed  it;  that  is  the  nursing  mother  of 
the  horrors  of  the  middle  passage,  and  that  after  slavery  in 
Massachusetts  was  found  not  to  pay  sold  those  slaves  down 
South  for  a  consideration,  and  then  thanked  God,  and  sang 
the  long  metre  Doxology  through  their  noses,  that  they 


1  George  Livermore's  Historical  Research,  p.  4,  Boston,  1863. 

-The  language,  "  any  other  community  in  this  land,"  might  seem  to  limit  the 
comparison,  for  the  alleged  responsibility,  to  the  British  colonies;  but  when, 
immediately  following,  Massachusetts  is  called  "the  nursing  mother  of  the 
horrors  of  the  middle  passage,"  it  is  clear  that  no  limitation  was  intended. 
2 


2O1 


were  not  responsible  any  longer  for  the  sin  of  human 
slavery,  should  at  least  be  modest  in  applying  epithets  to 
her  neighbors." 

"If  I  may  be  permitted,"  he  continues,  "to  disturb  the 
dignified  solemnities  of  this  body  for  one  moment,  I  will 
state  what  this  reminds  me  of.  I  once  heard  of  an  old 
maid  who  got  religion  at  a  camp-meeting.  Immediately 
after  she  had  experienced  the  change  she  commenced 
exhorting  the  younger  and  prettier  women  in  regard  to 
wearing  jewelry  and  gewgaws,  and  warned  them  against 
the  pernicious  consequences  to  piety  of  such  vanities. 
'Oh  !  girls,'  she  said,  'I  tell  you,  I  used  to  wear  ear-rings, 
and  finger  rings,  and  laces  and  furbelows  like  you  do,  but 
I  found  they  were  dragging  my  immortal  soul  down  to 
hell  ;  and  I  stripped  them  every  one  off  and  sold  them  to 
my  younger  sister  Sally.'  That  is  the  way  Massachusetts 
relieved  herself  from  slavery.  That  is  the  way  she  pre 
served  her  whiteness  of  soul."1 

Part  of  this  language  awakens  the  echoes  which  once 
resounded  through  the  halls  of  Congress  in  the  old  slavery 
days.  Passing  over  the  sarcasm  and  wit  shown  in  the  illus 
trative  anecdote,  it  will  be  more  significant  to  enquire  if  the 
allegations  of  fact  upon  which  they  rest  are  true.  No 
authorities  are  cited  tending  to  substantiate  them.  Ordina 
rily  it  is  difficult,  often  it  is  impossible  to  prove  a  negative.2 
But  in  this  case  it  is  easy  to  prove  the  falsity  of  the  charges 
alleged,  and  to  show  where  the  responsibility  of  introducing 


iCong.  Rec.,  March  26, 1884,  p.  2284. 

2  At  the  time  this  speech  was  made,  and  the  passage  above  cited  appeared  in 
the  newspapers,  my  friend  and  neighbor,  the  Hon.  John  C.  Dodge,  LL.D., 
urged  me  to  write  a  reply  to  it,  which  for  several  reasons  I  declined,  and  com 
mended  the  subject  to  him,  offering  him  any  materials  I  might  have  for  his  use. 
He  consented,  and  made  considerable  progress  in  the  work,  but  impaired  eye 
sight  warned  him  to  desist  from  making  further  extra  demands  upon  it,  and  he 
laid  his  manuscript  aside  before  finishing  it — at  least  according  to  his  original 
intention.  Mr.  Dodge  now  kindly  placed  this  paper  in  my  hands  with  liberty 
to  make  such  use  of  it  as  I  might  find  convenient.  I  found  it  to  be  admirably 
prepared,  and  seeming  fully  to  answer  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  designed  by 


slavery  into  this  continent  actually  rests.  The  Senator 
might  easily  have  informed  himself  that  the  work  of  trans 
porting  negroes  from  Africa  to  the  mainland  and  islands 
of  this  continent  was  almost  exclusively  done  by  English 
men  and  in  English  ships.  Mr.  Bancroft  writing  in  1840 
summarizes  the  matter  thus,  —  "While  the  South  Sea 
Company  satisfied  but  imperfectly  its  passion  for  wealth,  by 
a  monopoly  of  the  supply  of  negroes  for  the  Spanish  islands 
and  main,  the  African  Company  and  independent  traders 
were  still  more  busy  in  sending  negroes  to  the  colonies  of 
England.  To  this  eagerness,  encouraged  by  English  legis 
lation,  fostered  by  royal  favor,  and  enforced  for  a  century 
by  every  successive  ministry  of  England,  it  is  due,  that 
one-sixth  part  of  the  population  of  the  United  States  —  a 
moiety  of  those  who  dwell  in  the  five  States  nearest  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  —  are  descendants  of  Africans."1 

I  have  cited  this  extract  from  Mr.  Bancroft's  History 
because  the  work  is  so  easily  accessible,  the  volume  con 
taining  it  having  been  published  nearly  fifty  years  ago. 
Let  us  look  at  some  of  the  facts  on  which  this  statement 
rests.  And  I  invite  this  inspection  not  merely  by  way  of 
answering  the  charges  alleged,  which  would  require  but 
little  time  and  but  a  small  space  in  this  paper,  but  to  bring 
before  us  some  of  the  facts  and  statistics  relating  to  the 
British  slave-trade,  in  a  narrative  form,  as  more  suitable 
to  an  occasion  like  this. 

"The  history  of  English  America,"  says  Mr.  Payne  in 
hib  Voyages  of  the  Elizabethan  Seamen,  "begins  with  the 
three  slave-trading  voyages  of  John  Hawkins,  made  in  the 
years  1562,  1564,  and  1567. 2  Nothing  that  Englishmen 


him.  I  will  add  that  I  have  here  made  free  use  of  such  of  its  notes  and 
references  as  suited  my  purpose,  thereby  saving  to  myself  considerable  time 
and  labor. 

1  Bancroft's  History  of  U.  S.,  Vol.  III.,  p.  402. 

2  It  is  not  improbable  that  old  William  Hawkins,  the  father  of  John,  had 
already  made  the  Brazilian  voyage  in  1530  and  1532,  by  way  of  Guinea,  though 
Hakluyt  is  silent  as  to  slaves. 


had  done  in  connection  with  America,  previously  to  those 
voyages  had  any  results  worth  recording."  Nearly  seventy 
years  before,  John  Cabot,  sailing  for  England,  had  reached 
the  New  World,  and  some  English  adventurers  as  the 
tidings  of  discovery  spread  had  crossed  the  Atlantic  to  the 
American  coast.  "But  as  years  passed  the  English  voy 
ages  to  America  had  become  fewer  and  fewer,  and  at  length 
ceased  altogether."  As  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  planta 
tions  in  America  multiplied  the  demand  for  negroes  also 
increased.  The  Spaniards  had  no  African  settlements,  but 
the  Portuguese,  who  were  the  pioneers  in  the  negro  slave- 
trade  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  had  many  ;  and  with  the  aid  of 
the  French  were  able  to  supply  enough  for  both  themselves 
and  their  neighbor.  But  so  rapid  was  the  growth  of  the. 
Brazilian  plantations,  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen 
tury,  that  they  absorbed  the  entire  supply  and  the  Spanish 
colonists  knew  not  where  to  look  for  negroes.  ' '  This  penury 
of  slaves  in  the  Spanish  Indies  became  known  to  the  Eng 
lish  and  French  captains  who  frequented  the  Guinea  coast ; 
and  John  Hawkins  who  had  been  engaged  from  boyhood  in 
the  trade  with  Spain  and  the  Canaries,  resolved  in  1562  to 
take  a  cargo  of  negro  slaves  to  Hispaniola."1  The  old 
chronicler,  Hakluyt,  has  preserved  an  account  of  these 
three  expeditions,  of  the  kidnapping  of  the  negroes  on  the 
coast  of  Africa,  and  their  transportation  to  the  West  Indies, 
written  by  eye-witnesses.  The  first  voyage,  which  was 
successful,  opened  the  seas  of  the  West  Indies  to  the  Eng 
lish  navigator.  Hawkins  sold  his  negroes  in  Hispaniola, 
delivering  them  at  the  northern  ports  on  the  island.  The 
second  voyage  was  likewise  successful,  for  Hawkins  entered 
the  Caribbean  Sea,  visited  the  Spanish  main,  where  he  sold 
his  living  freight,  and  returned  by  the  way  of  Florida  — 
where  he  visited  the  French  colony  of  Laudonniere  —  and 
the  coast  of  North  America,  following  very  nearly  the 


1  Voyages  of  the  Elizabethan  Seamen  to  America,  by  E.J.Payne:  London, 
1880,  pp.  1-6. 


track  of  Verrazzano  forty  years  before.  This  voyage  won 
for  him  wealth  and  distinction,  and  in  1565  he  obtained 
from  the  Queen  his  well-known  coat  of  arms,  having  the 
crest  of  "a  demi-rnoor  bound  and  captive."  The  vessel  in 
which  he  sailed  on  this  voyage,  the  one  he  personally  com 
manded,  was  the  "  Jesus."  His  third  voyage  was  disas 
trous  in  the  extreme,  as  in  an  encounter  with  a  Spanish 
fleet  at  the  port  of  San  Juan  de  Ullua,  in  which  he  had 
taken  refuge  in  a  storm,  he  barely  escaped  to  tell  the  tale. 
In  his  distress  he  was  obliged  to  put  on  shore,  on  the  Mexi 
can  coast,  one  hundred  men,  being  one-half  of  his  number, 
to  struggle  for  themselves,  and  the  subsequent  history  of 
those  who  survived  forms  an  interesting  episode  in  the  early 
annals  of  America. 

It  should  perhaps  be  explained  here  why  Hawkins  was 
obliged  to  visit  the  Spanish  ports  in  America  by  stealth 
to  sell  his  negroes,  when  this  species  of  merchandise  was 
so  much  wanted.  The  Spanish  colonists  were  eager  to  buy 
and  to  them  Hawkins  sold  in  spite  of  the  remonstrance 
and  opposition  of  the  Spanish  colonial  officials,  who  had 
been  instructed  by  the  government  at  home  to  admit  no 
English  ships  into  their  ports.  For  political  reasons 
especially,  great  jealousy  of  the  English  existed  in  Spain, 
and  after  Hawkins's  first  and  second  voyages,  express  orders 
were  issued  against  him.  Hawkins  was,  therefore,  an 
interloper  on  the  coast.  This  was  Hawkins's  last  slave- 
voyage,  and  he  is  the  only  Englishman  who,  during  the 
sixteenth  century,  mixed  himself  up  with  the  slave-trade.1 

I  might  add  that  previous  to  Hawkins's  slave  ventures 
English  merchantmen  often  visited  the  coast  of  Africa. 

o 

We  find  them  there  in  1551,  and  in  the  following  years 
down  to  1556,  but  no  slaves  are  mentioned  as  objects  of 
traffic.2 

i"Some  Account  of  the  Trade  in  Slaves  from  Africa  as  connected  with 
Europe  and  America,"  &c.,  by  James  Bandinel,  Esq.,  Foreign  Office,  London, 
1842,  p.  39. 

2  Bandiuel,  33,  36.    "  It  is  said,  that,  in  the  year  1553,  four  and  twenty  negroes 


8 

England  now  began  to  realize  the  importance  of  enlarg 
ing  her  commerce  as  a  vent  for  her  manufacturing  products, 
and  several  commercial  companies  were  chartered  by  royal 
favor  in  aid  of  their  schemes  for  trading  to  different  parts 
of  the  African  coast.  A  few  voyages  were  made,  but 
negroes  are  not  mentioned  as  objects  of  traffic.1 

In  1618  a  royal  grant  was  made  to  the  Governor  and 
Company  of  Adventurers  trading  to  Africa,  which  is  the 
first  instance  in  which  the  English  seriously  interfered  with 
the  exclusive  sovereignty  claimed  by  Portugal  on  that 
coast.  They  erected  forts  and  established  factories  on  the 
Gambia,  but  the  profits  not  answering  their  expectations 
the  company  disbanded  and  the  charter  was  suffered  to 
expire.  But  that  company  did  not  meddle  with  the  trade 
in  slaves.2 

In    1631  a  second  African   company   was  chartered  for 


were  brought  into  this  island  from  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  immediately  to  an 
English  port,  as  at  that  time  we  had  no  American  or  sugar  trade." — Barring- 
ton's  Statutes,  281,  quoting  Hakluyt. 

iBandinel,  39;  Astley's  Voyages,  II.,  158,  159. 

2Baudinel,42,43;  Edwards's,  West  Indies,  II.,  52,  London,  1819.  There  prob 
ably  were  at  this  early  period  roaming  vessels  of  the  English  as  of  other  nations 
ready  to  pick  up  negroes  on  the  coast  of  Africa  or  elsewhere  nearer  at  home. 

In  August,  1619,  a  Dutch  man-of-war  arrived  in  Virginia,  and  sold  to  the 
planters  there  twenty  negroes,  the  first  brought  into  the  colony.  This  Dutch 
vessel  was  not  a  slaver  from  the  coast  of  Africa.  She  had  accidentally  con- 
s.orted,  in  the  West  Indies,  with  an  English  ship,  the  Treasurer,  Captain 
Elfred,  owned  by  the  Earl  of  Warwick  and  Governor  Argall,  and  was  sent  out 
by  the  former  with  an  old  commission  from  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  authorizing 
her  to  take  Spaniards  as  lawful  prize.  Manned  and  newly  victualled  from 
Virginia  she  set  out  on  her  roving  voyage.  "  These  twenty  negroes  were  part 
of  one  hundred,"  says  one  authority,  '*  captured  from  a  Spanish  vessel  by  the 
Treasurer."  (4  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  IX.,  4-7,  and  note  p.  4).  The  remain- 
der  were  taken  to  Bermuda  and  placed  011  the  Earl  of  Warwick's  plantation. 
(Burk's  Virginia,  I.,  319;  Niell's  Virginia  Company,  pp.  120, 121.) 

Captain  Arthur  Guy,  in  1628,  in  the  ship  Fortune  of  London,  met  and  cap 
tured  a  slaver  from  the  Angola  coast ,  and  brought  many  negroes  to  Virginia 
and  exchanged  them  for  tobacco.  Niell's  Virginia  Carolorum,  p.  59. 

Dutch  vessels  are  early  found  on  the  coast  of  Africa  engaged  in  the  slave 
business,  and  later  they  became  one  of  the  most  active  maritime  powers  to 
enlist  in  this  traffic.  In  1625  or  1626,  the  Dutch  brought  the  first  negroes  to 
Manhattan.  See  Journals  of  the  voyages  of  two  Dutch  slavers,  the  St.  John 
and  Arms  of  Amsterdam,  1659,  1663,  which,  with  illustrative  papers,  were 
published  in  1867,  edited  by  E.  B.  O'Callaghan. 


thirty-one  years,  and  all  persons  except  the  patentees  pro 
hibited  from  trading  to  Guinea,  between  Cape  Blanco  and 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  As  the  English  had  now  begun 
the  settlement  of  plantations  in  the  West  Indies,  negroes 
were  in  such  demand  as  to  induce  the  new  company  at 
great  expense  to  erect  forts  and  warehouses  on  the  coast 
for  the  protection  of  their  commerce.  This  marks  the  time 
when  the  English  began  to  embark  in  the  importing  of 
slaves  from  Africa — the  first  since  the  days  of  Hawkins; 
but  it  does  not  appear  that  they  had  as  yet  entered  upon 
what  was  called  the  "carrying  trade"  for  others.  The 
English,  French,  Dutch  and  Portuguese  each  supplied 
their  own  colonies  with  slaves.  The  Spaniards,  as  I  have 
said,  had  no  resources  on  the  coast  of  Africa  and  were 
obliged  to  resort  to  other  nations  to  supply  their  colonists. 
But  the  trade  of  this  company  was  so  interfered  with  by 
interlopers  and  private  traders,  united  to  the  intense 
hostility  of  the  Dutch,  who  had  now  acquired  additional 
possessions  in  Guinea  from  the  Portuguese,  that  the  trade 
was  laid  open  and  so  continued  till  after  the  Restoration. 
In  1641  the  English  Barbadoes  procured  sugar-cane  from 
Brazil,  and  after  the  fashion  of  the  Portuguese  black  slaves 
were  resorted  to  for  its  cultivation.1 

In  1655,  Cromwell,  in  failing  to  take  St.  Domingo,  took 
Jamaica,  and  commenced  peopling  it  with  emigrants  from 
England,  Scotland  and  Ireland;  and  he  had  it  "much  at 
heart"  to  transport  the  Massachusetts  colony  thither.  It 
does  not  appear  that  he  contemplated  the  aid  of 'negroes  in 
cultivation.  No  sugar  was  yet  produced  here.  But  Jamaica 
was  destined  to  play  an  important  part  in  the  history  of  the 
English  slave-trade. 

In  the  year  1662,  Charles  II.  incorporated  a  third  exclu 
sive  African  company,  of  which  his  brother,  the  Duke  of 
York,  and  other  distinguished  persons,  were  members. 
That  company  undertook  to  supply  the  British  West  India 


iBandinel,  44,  47.  48;  Edwards,  II.,  52,  53. 


10 

colonies  with  three  thousand  negroes  annually.  In  1664, 
the  King,  intending  to  make  war  on  the  Dutch,  sent  Sir 
Robert  Holmes  to  the  coast  of  Africa  with  orders  to  reduce 
the  Dutch  forts  near  Cape  Verde,  and  their  factories  on  the 
Guinea  coast.  In  this  war  New  York  was  taken  by  the 
English.  These  several  African  companies,  however, 
though  protected  by  patents  and  exclusive  privileges,  do  not 
appear  to  have  flourished,  and  from  time  to  time  they 
returned  into  the  hands  of  the  Crown  the  favors  granted  to 
them. 

In  1672 — the  third  company  having  surrendered  their 
charter  to  the  Crown  —  the  fourth  and  last  exclusive  African 
company  was  established.  It  was  an  incorporated  company 
upon  a  joint  stock,  as  the  last  company  had  been.  It  bore 
the  dignified  name  of  the  "Royal  African  Company,"  and 
it  had  among  its  members  the  King,  the  Duke  of  York,  and 
many  others  of  rank  and  quality.  The  capital  was  £111 ,000 
sterling.  The  grant  was  from  Port  Sallee  in  South  Barbary, 
to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  They  allowed  the  late  com 
pany  £34,000  for  their  three  forts  at  Cape  Coast  Castle, 
Sierra  Leone,  and  James  Fort,  and  they  exhibited  great 
energy  in  prosecuting  their  business.  They  enlarged  Cape 
Coast  Castle,  built  forts  at  Accra,  and  five  other  places, 
and  imported  large  quantities  of  dyestuffs,  of  ivory,  wax 
and  gold,  and  supplied  the  British  colonists  with  slaves. 
From  the  gold  dust  which  they  procured  was  struck  the 
English  coin  known  as  the  "guinea" — from  the  name  of 
the  country  —  50,000  at  one  time,  in  1673,  and  called 
"elephant  guineas"  from  the  stamp  they  bore.  But  by  the 
Declaration  of  Right  at  the  Revolution  of  1688  all  royal 
charters  were  attacked  and  the  exclusive  character  of  this 
company  was  taken  away,  though  they  still  persisted  in 
seizing  the  ships  of  the  separate  traders,  which  occasioned 
great  clamor  and  obstruction.  In  1689  the  company 
entered  into  a  contract  to  supply  the  Spanish  West  Indies 
with  slaves  from  Jamaica,  and  in  1697-8  the  trade  to 


11 

Africa  which  by  the  Declaration  of  Right  was  claimed  to  be 
laid  open  was  expressly  made  so  by  Parliament  under  cer 
tain  conditions.  By  statutes  of  9  and  10,  W.  and  M.,  c. 
26,  it  was  enacted  "that  for  the  preservation  of  the  trade, 
and  for  the  advantage  of  England  and  its  colonies,  it  should 
be  lawful  for  any  of  the  subjects  of  his  Majesty's  realm  of 
England,  as  well  as  for  the  company,  to  trade  from  England 
and  the  plantations  in  America  to  Africa,  between  Cape 
Mount  and 'Cape  of  Good  Hope,  upon  paying  for  the  afore 
said  uses  a  duty  of  10  p.  cent,  ad  valorem  for  the  goods 
exported  from  England  or  the  plantations,  to  be  paid  to  the 
collector  at  the  time  of  entry  outwards,  for  the  use  of  the 
company."1  Also  a  further  10  per  cent,  was  to  be  paid  on 
all  goods  imported  into  England  or  the  plantations  from  the 
coast  aforesaid.  This  act  was  limited  to  thirteen  years, 
and  Astley  says  it  was  renewed  in  1712.2  On  the  18th  of 
April,  1707,  a  circular  letter  from  the  Board  of  Trade  was 
addressed  to  all  the  British  American  colonies,  asking  for 
information  as  to  whether  the  act  just  cited  has  accomplished 
its  purpose  in  affording  the  best  means  for  "the  well  supply 
ing  of  the  plantations  and  colonies  with  sufficient  number  of 
negroes  at  reasonable  prices,"  which  is  "the  chief  point  to 
be  considered  in  regard  to  that  trade,"  it  being  "absolutely 
necessary  that  a  trade  so  beneficial  to  the  kingdom  should 
be  carried  on  to  the  greatest  advantage."3  The  struggle 
now  was  between  the  African  Company,  with  its  abridged 
monopoly,  and  the  private  traders,  "the  subjects  of  his 
Majesty's  Realm  of  England,"  as  to  which  offered  the  best 
method  for  supplying  the  colonies  with  negroes  in  sufficient 
numbers  and  at  the  most  reasonable  prices. 

It  appears  that  there  had  been  annually  imported  into 
the  British  colonies  between  167(J  and  1689 — a  period  of 
ten  years  —  by  the  African  Company,  and  by  interloping 

1  Edwards's   West  Indies,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  54-56;   Statutes  of  the  Realm,  Vol. 
VII. ;  Bandinel,  pp.  52,  53,  54. 

2  Astley's  Voyages,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  160,  161. 
*E.  I.  Col.  Sec.,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  53. 


12 

traders,  about  4,500  slaves,  and  in  the  last  named  year,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  the  company  entered  into  a  contract 
with  the  Spanish  government  to  supply  her  colonies  with 
slaves  from  Jamaica,  which  island  was  to  be  the  entrepot; 
andut  likewise  appears  that  from  1698  to  1707  there  were 
landed  in  the  British  colonies,  partly  by  the  company  and 
partly  by  British  traders,  about  25,000  negroes  a  year.1 
The  direct  supply  of  slaves  from  Africa  to  the  Spanish 
colonies  was,  however,  at  this  time,  engrossed  by  the 
French,  and  it  was  not  till  1713  that  the  English  took  part 
in  the  carrying  trade.2 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the 
British  slave-trade.  In  the  year  1713,  the  French  contract 
with  Spain  having  expired,  the  Spanish  government  made 
over  to  an  English  company  by  formal  royal  contract  the 
privilege  of  supplying  the  Spanish-American  colonies  with 
slaves  from  Africa.  The  Spanish  term  for  contract,  "Ass-i- 
ento"  was  now  specially  applied  to  this  agreement.  The 
contract  was  called  k'  The  Assiento"  and  the  company  the 
"  Assientists."  The  contract  was  held  of  such  importance 
as  to  form  the  subject  of  a  stipulation  in  the  preliminaries 
of  the  treaty  of  peace  of  Utrecht,  and  it  was  confirmed  in 
the  sixteenth  article  of  that  treaty.  It  was  to  last  for  thirty 
years.3  The  treaty  was  really  between  Philip  V.  of  Spain 
and  Anne,  Queen  of  England ;  and  this  is  the  language  of 
the  agreement:  —  ''Her  Britannic  Majesty  did  offer  and 
undertake,  by  persons  whom  she  shall  appoint,  to  bring 
into  the  West  Indies  of  America  belonging  to  his  Catholic 
Majesty,  in  the  space  of  thirty  years  144,000  negroes,  at  the 
rate  of  4,800  in  each  of  the  said  thirty  years  ;"4  advancing 
him  200,000  crowns  for  the  privilege  and  paying  a  duty  of 
thirty-three  and  one-half  crowns  for  each  slave.  And  they 
might  import  as  many  more  as  they  could  sell  the  first 

1  Report  of  Priv.  Council  on  trade  with  Africa,  Bandinel,  p.  56. 

2  Bandinel,  p.  50. 

3  Bandinel,  pp.  57-61. 

4  Bancroft,  Vol.  III.,  p.  232. 


13 

twenty-five  years  at  a  reduced  scale  of  duty.1  "Exactest 
care  was  taken,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "to  secure  a  monopoly. 
No  Frenchman,  nor  Spaniard,  nor  any  other  person  might 
introduce  one  negro  slave  into  Spanish-America.  For  the 
Spanish  world  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  on  the  Atlantic,  and 
along  the  Pacific,  as  well  as  for  the  English  colonies,  her 
Britannic  Majesty  by  persons  of  her  appointment,  was  the 
exclusive  slave  trader.  England  extorted  the  privilege  of 
filling  the  new  world  with  negroes."2  As  large  profits 
were  expected,  the  King  of  Spain  took  one-quarter  of  the 
stock  and  gave  his  note  for  it,  and  the  Queen  reserved  to 
herself  one-quarter,  while  the  remaining  one-half  was  left 
for  her  subjects.  Thus,  continues  Mr.  Bancroft,  the  Sover 
eigns  of  England  and  Spain  became  the  largest  slave 
merchants  in  the  world.  By  advice  of  her  minister  Queen 
Anne  assigned  her  portion  of  the  stock  to  the  South  Sea 
Company  which  contracted  for  this  carrying  trade. 

It  is  calculated  that  for  twenty  ye&rs  after  this  contract 
the  number  of  slaves  annually  exported  from  Africa  by  the 
English  was  15,000,  of  whom  a  third  to  a  half  went  to  the 
Spanish  colonies ;  and  that  for  the  following  twenty  years 
the  number  was  20, 000. 3 

The  slave-trade  part  of  the  assiento  had  all  along  been  a 
losing  business,  the  only  thing  which  sustained  the  com 
pany  being  the  privilege  reserved  of  sending  annually  a 
ship  to  Puerto  Bello  with  merchandise  —  a  clause  in  the 
contract  which  opened  a  wide  field  for  fraudulent  profit,  as 
well  as  for  complaint,  resulting  finally  in  loss,  and  was  one 
occasion  of  the  war  which  in  1 739  broke  out  between  Eng 
land  and  Spain. 

In  1739,  twenty-five  years  from  the  date  of  the  assiento 
agreement,  the  English  company  had  got  in  debt  to  Spain 

1Baodinel,  pp.  57,  58;  Journal  House  of  Commons,  Vol.  XVIL,  p.  341,  Art. 
XII.,  p.  342;  Mem.  of  Lord  Bolingbroke,  by  G.  W.  Cooke,  second  ed.,  Vol.  I., 
p.  233,  London,  1836. 

2  Bancroft,  III.,  232. 

3Bandinel,  p.  59. 


14 

to  the  amount  of  £68,000,  and  the  King  of  Spain  threatened 
to  suspend  the  contract  if  the  sum  was  not  paid.  The  war 
between  the  two  countries  interrupted  the  contract  which 
soon  after  came  to  an  end. 

The  English  African  company,  in  the  mean  time,  had 
been  entirely  ruined  by  the  assiento  speculation,  and  in 
1729  were  obliged  to  come  before  Parliament  for  assistance 
to  keep  up  their  forts  and  factories.  We  have  already 
seen  that  the  trade  had  been  conditionally  opened  by  gov 
ernment  to  English  traders  to  her  own  colonies,  so  that  the 
company's  monopoly  had  been  infringed  upon.  Parliament 
granted  them  from  1729  to  1749  £80,000,  so  important 
was  it  to  keep  alive  one  of  the  important  agencies  for  trans 
porting  slaves  from  Africa.1  But  in  1750  the  company  was 
dissolved,  their  charter,  forts  and  all  their  property  sur 
rendered  to  government  who  paid  their  debts,  and  the 
African  trade  was  placed  under  a  new  company  so  that  the 
business  should  be  open  to  all  his  Majesty's  subjects.2 
Although  the  African  company  now  ceased  to  export 
negroes  from  Africa  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  num 
ber  of  slaves  exported  in  English  vessels  had  diminished. 
The  carrying  trade  had  become  open  to  the  English  gener 
ally,  and  though  other  nations,  the  Dutch,  the  French,  and 
lastly  the  Spaniard  now  by  degrees  entered  into  the  busi 
ness,  still, |  from  1750  down  to  the  time  of  the  American 
Revolution,  the  English  were  by  far  the  greatest  exporters 
of  slaves  from  Africa,  and  the  number  was  constantly 
increasing.3 


!Bandmel,p.  60. 

2  The  preamble  to  the  act  of  1750  recites :  —  "  Whereas  the  trade  to  Africa  is 
very  advantageous  to  Great  Britain,  and  necessary  for  the  supplying  the  planta 
tions  and  colonies  thereunto  belonging  with  a  sufficient  number  of  negroes  at 
reasonable  rates,  and  for  that  purpose  the  said  trade  ought  to  be  free  to  all  his 
Majesty's  subjects,"  etc.  (Statutes  at  large.) 

3 The  following  chronological  summary  may  be  interesting:  —  In  1708  a  com 
mittee  of  the  House  of  Commons  reported  that  '•  the  trade  is  important  and 
ought  to  be  free";  in  1711  a  committee  once  more  report  that  "the  plantations 
ought  to  be  supplied  with  negroes  at  reasonable  rates,"  and  recommend  an 


15 

Edwards  says  that  from  1733  to  1766  the  average  annual 
exportation  of  slaves  from  Africa  by  England  might  be 
estimated  at  20,000,  but  that  immediately  before  the  troubles 
with  America  the  number  had  increased  to  41,000.  And 
Macpherson  in  his  History  of  Commerce,  states  that  the 
number  shipped  in  1768  by  all  nations  for  America  and 
the  West  Indies  was  estimated  at  97,000,  that  of  these  the 
British  shipping  took  60,000.* 

Edwards2  estimates  that  between  1680  and  1700,  twenty 
years,  the  African  company  and  the  private  traders  exported 
from  Africa  300,000,  which  is  15,000  a  year.  From  1700 
to  1786  to  Jamaica  alone  610,000,  or  about  7,000  annually. 
Of  the  number  in  the  same  interval,  imported  into  the 
southern  provinces  of  North  America  as  well  as  the  Wind 
ward  Islands  such  precision  cannot  be  employed,  but 
Edwards  is  of  opinion  that  Jamaica  may  be  one-third  of 
the  whole,  and  that  the  total  import  into  all  the  British 
colonies  of  America  and  the  West  Indies  from  1680  to 
1786,  or  one  hundred  and  six  years,  may  be  put  at 
2,130,000,  an  annual  average  of  20,095. 

I  have  a  list  of  slave  ships  which  sailed  from  England 
from  1771  to  1787,  eighteen  years.  In  1771,  192  ships 
sailed  from  Liverpool,  London  and  Bristol,  provided  for 
47,000  slaves  — 107  ships  from  Liverpool  alone  'provided 
for  29,250  slaves.  In  1772,  175  vessels  were  employed; 


increase  of  the  trade;  in  June,  1712,  Queen  Anne,  in  her  speech  to  Parliament, 
boasts  of  her  success  in  securing  to  Englishmen  a  new  market  for  slaves  in 
Spanish  America;  in  1720  George  II.  recommended  a  provision  at  the  national 
expense  for  the  African  forts,  and  the  recommendation  was  allowed;  at  last,  in 
1749,  to  give  the  highest  activity,  to  the  trade,  every  obstruction  to  private 
enterorise  was  removed  and  the  ports  of  Africa  were  laid  open  to  English  com 
petition,  for  "  the  slave  trade,"  in  the  words  of  the  statute,  "  is  very  advanta 
geous  to  Great  Britain."  "  The  British  Senate,"  writes  Horace  Wai  pole  to  Sir 
II.  Mann,  February  2"),  17">0,  "have  this  fortnight  been  pondering  methods  to 
make  more  effectual  that  horrid  traffic  of  selling  negroes;  it  has  appeared  to  us 
that  six  and  forty  thousand  of  these  wretches  are  sold  every  year  to  our  planta 
tions  alone."  (Bancroft,  III.,  414.)  Bandinel,  pp.  61,  63. 

iBandincl,  p.  03. 

2  Vol.  IT.,  p.  <U.  ed.  of  1819. 


10 

1773,  151;  1774,  167:  1775,  152;  177(5,  101. '  In  the 
three  following  years  owing  to  the  American  Revolution 
there  was  a  brief  suspension  of  the  trade,  but  at  its  close  it 
was  renewed. 

And  here  I  may  mention,  incidentally,  that  so  large  was 
the  death-rate  among  slaves  in  the  West  Indies  and  so 
small  the  natural  increase,  that  in  1840,  the  whole  negro 
population  in  the  English  islands,  including  mixed  breeds, 
did  not  exceed  7(53,000.  Burke,  in  his  account  of  the 
European  settlements  in  America,  in  1755,  states,  that  at 
that  period  the  number  of  negro  slaves  in  the  British 
possessions  in  the  West  Indies  was  about  240,000,  and 
that  of  the  white  population  90,000;  and  that  in  Virginia 
there  were  about  100,000  negro  slaves,  with  a  white  popula 
tion  of  between  60,000  and  70,000 ;  and  that  the  English 
imported  annually  at  least  one-sixteenth  part  of  the  existing 
negroes  to  keep  up  the  stock,  making  an  importation  of 
about  15,000  annually  for  the  British  West  Indies,  and  of 
6,200  for  Virginia.2 

But  it  appears  that  the  result  was  different  in  the 
original  colonies  of  the  United  States  from  that  in  the  West 
Indies.  With  an  estimated  importation  of,  say,  350,000, 
from  1619  to  1808,  these  had  increased  in  1830  to 
2,328, 642 3  or  in  I860  to  near  4,000,000.4 

"We  shall  not  err  very  much,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  if, 
for  the  century  previous  to  the  prohibition  of  the  slave- 
trade  by  the  American  Congress,  in  1776,  we  assume  the 
number  imported  by  the  English  into  the  Spanish,  French, 
and  English  West  Indies,  as  well  as  the  English  continental 
colonies,  to  have  been,  collectively  nearly  three  millions, 
to  which  are  to  be  added  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million 


1  Ed  wards,  II.,  65,  6G. 

2  Band!  lie),  64,65. 

*T.  G.  Bradford  and  S.  G.  Goodrich,  Atlas,  166, 167. 

4  About  30,000  were  found  in  Louisiana  at  the  time  of  her  incorporation  into 
the  Union.  H.  C.  Carey,  "  Slave  Trade,  Domestic  and  Foreign,"  Philadel 
phia,  1856,  pp.  13,  17. 


17 

thrown  into  the  Atlantic  on  the  passage."  And  these  statis 
tics,  I  may  add,  are  the  lowest  ever  made  by  any  writer. 
"  English  ships  fitted  out  in  English  cities,"  continues  Mr. 
Bancroft,  "under  the  special  favor  of  the  royal  family,  of 
the  ministry,  and  of  parliament,  stole  from  Africa,  in  the 
years  from  1700  to  1750,  probably  a  million  and  a  half  of 
souls,  of  whom  one-eighth  were  buried  in  the  Atlantic, 
victims  of  the  passage."1 

Here  we  see  who  is  principally  responsible,  since  the 
beginning  of  their  settlement,  for  introducing  slaves  from 
Africa  into  the  British-American  colonies.  It  is  the  story 
briefly  told  of  the  British  slave-trade ;  of  the  transference, 
not  of  the  seeds  of  a  race  merely,  but  of  a  people,  from  one 
continent  to  another.  It  was  generally  regarded  at  the 
time  as  a  respectable  business.  For  many  years  the  public 
conscience  uttered  no  reproaches,  but  finally  it  was  aroused. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  did  not  Massachusetts,  or  some  of 
the  citizens  of  Massachusetts,  engage  in  the  African  slave- 
trade?  Undoubtedly  they  did,  to  a  certain  extent,  and  I 
have  no  wish  to  screen  Massachusetts  from  her  responsibility 
in  this  business.  Her  citizens  shared,  more  or  less,  in  the 
opinions  of  the  time,  on  the  moral,  social  and  economical 
problems  which  underlay  society,  and  were  subject  to  the 
debasing  influences  which  sometimes  attended  commercial 
and  mercantile  enterprises  ;  but  there  was  always  a  protest 
from  the  heart  of  the  people  against  this  crime  to  humanity, 
from  the  time  of  Joseph  Sewall  in  1700  to  Nathaniel  Apple- 
ton  in  1769,  which  ere  long  made  itself  felt  as  a  controlling 
influence  in  the  community. 

The  Massachusetts  colonists  became  early  a  commercial 
people.  They  built  ships  and  freighted  them  with  their 
own  productions,  and  traded  to  the  West  Indies,  the  Span 
ish  main  and  to  Europe,  quite  regardless  of  the  English 
Act  of  Navigation — after  the  passage  of  that  act  in  1651. 
And  as  it  is  well  known  that  there  were  a  few  negro  slaves 

i  Bancroft,  III.,  411,  412. 


18 

in  the  colony  during  the  first  charter,  it  is  clear  that  some  of 
them  were  part  of  the  return  cargoes  from  the  West  Indies. 
Some  of  their  vessels  went  as  far  as  the  coast  of  Africa, 
and  Winthrop  notices  one  which  went  to  the  Canaries  in 
1644'  with  pipe-staves,  and  brought  home  an  assorted  cargo 
which  she  took  in  at  Barbadoes  "in  exchange  for  Africoes 
which  she  carried  from  the  Isle  of  Maio,"  one  of  the  Cape 
Verde  Islands. 

The  first  negroes  brought  into  the  colony,  so  far  as  we 
know,  came  in  the  ship  Desire,  Captain  Peirce,  Febru 
ary  26,  1637-38,  who  brought  home  some  cotton  and 
tobacco  and  negroes  from  the  West  Indies.  These  were 
the  return  cargo  of  the  vessel,  which,  seven  months  before, 
had  taken  some  Pequot  captives  to  the  Bermudas  for  sale. 
The  three  negroes  seen  by  Josselyn  at  Samuel  Maverick's 
house  on  Noddle's  Island  in  October  of  the  following  year, 
no  doubt  came  from  that  importation.  We  do  not  know 
whether  these  were  all.1 

In  1645  it  came  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Massachusetts 
authorities  that  some  slaves  had  been  brought  into  the 

O 

colony  from  Guinea  that  had  been  kidnapped  or  stolen  from 
that  coast,  one  of  whom  was  in  possession  of  a  Mr. 
Williams  of  Piscataqua.  The  owner  was  required  to  pro 
duce  the  negro,  and  an  order  was  passed  November  4, 
1646,  directing  that  the  captives  be  returned  to  their  native 
land  of  Guinea,  "the  General  Court  conceiving  themselves 
bound  by  the  first  opportunity  to  bear  witness  against  the 
heinous  and  crying  sin  of  man-stealing,"  and  the  Governor 
was  desired  to  put  the  order  into  execution.2 

In  whatever  light  we  may  regard  this  transaction,  it  is 
evident  from  this,  that  the  negro,  in  1645,  was  regarded  in 
Massachusetts  as  a  man;  and  by  a  clause  in  the  Body  of 
Liberties  of  1641,  "  Man-stealing"  was  punished  with  death. 


i  Winthrop's  Journal,  Vol.  I.,  p.  255;  Josselyn's  Voyages,  London,  1674.  p. 
3. 
2 Mass.  Coll.  Rec.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  108. 


19 

In  this  case  it  was  doubted  whether  the  authority  of  the 
government  extended  so  far  as  to  punish  a  citizen  for  acts 
committed  on  the  coast  of  Africa. 

Edward  Randolph  in  1676,  and  Governor  Bradstreet  in 
1680,  report  a  few  slaves  brought  here  from  Guinea  and 
Madagascar,  and  from  the  West  Indies,  but  do  not  mention 
who  brought  them.  The  latter  says  that  "no  company  of 
slaves  have  been  brought  since  the  establishment  of  the 
colony  fifty  years  ago,  except  about  two  years  ago,  after 
twenty  months'  voyage  to  Madagascar,  a  vessel  brought 
forty  or  fifty  negroes."1 

Sir  Josiah  Childe  in  his  New  Discourse  of  Trade,"  first 
published  in  1668  (a  remarkable  book  for  its  day),  has  an 
interesting  passage  on  the  commerce  of  New  England, — 
and  where  he  speaks  of  New  England  he  probably  means 
Massachusetts — in    which    he    enumerates    her  articles    of 
export  and  import,  describes  the  whole  course  and  extent 
of  her  trade,  but  says  not  a  word  of  negroes,  except  to 
draw  a  comparison  between  New  England  and  Barbadoes, 
where  slaves   were  employed  as  laborers.      And   Edward 
Randolph,   referred    to    above,   in  a  long   and   interesting 
report  to  the  Privy  Council  in  1676,  on  the  resources  of  the 
country,  her  agriculture,  her  manufactures,  the  character 
and  extent  of  her  commerce   with  her  sister  colonies  and 
with  foreign  nations,  says,  near  the  close  of  this  section  of 
his  paper:  —  "There  are  some  ships  lately  sent  j:o  Guinea, 
Madagascar  and   those    coasts,   and    some  to   Scanderoon, 
ladep  with  masts  and  yards  for  ships."3 
^Governor  Dudley,  in  1708,  in  replying  to  the  circular 
letter  from  the  Board  of  Trade,  to  which  I  have  already 
referred,  says  that  from  January  24,   1698,  to  December 
25,  1707,  200  negroes  arrived  in  Massachusetts  —  that  the 
African    company   had    not    any   factory    or   ships    here. 


13  Mass.  Hist.  Soe.  Coll.,  VIII.,  337. 

2  See  pp.  212-214  of  edition  of  1693. 

3  Hutchinson  Papers,  p.  495. 

3 


20 

"Some  traders  on  their  own  account,  a  long  time  since, 
have  been  on  the  coast  of  Guinea  and  imported  slaves. 
The  last  was  Thomas  Winsor,  who  brought  slaves  from 
Africa  in  1699,  and  also  twenty-five  of  them  in  1700. '51 
The  duties  belonging  to  the  African  company  are  enclosed 
by  the  writer.  "Such  money,"  says  Mr.  Felt,  "appears 
to  have  been  what  the  company  claimed  by  their  charter, 
which  allowed  them  the  monopoly  of  the  slave-trade  with 
the  English  dominions." 

More  slaves  were  brought  into  the  colony  as  the  new 
century  opened.  Some  of  them  probably  coming  from  the 
West  Indies,  and  some  of  them  direct  from  the  coast  of 
Africa ;  and  to  whatever  extent  the  African  slave-trade  was 
prosecuted  from  Massachusetts,  it  seems  to  have  been, 
prior  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  confined  to 
a  comparatively  few  vessels.  Statistics  unhappily  are 
wanting,  and  we  must  reason  from  general  facts  and  con 
temporary  opinions.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  Afri 
can  companies  had,  by  their  charters,  a  complete  monopoly 
of  the  trade  —  from  1631  to  1698 — except  during  small 
intervals  of  time,  and  from  the  last  named  date  to  1750, 
the  trade  was  so  fur  opened  that  "any  of  the  subjects 
of  his  Majesty's  Realm  of  England"  could  participate  in  it 
—  by  implication  no  others.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
interloping  vessels  from  Massachusetts  sometimes  visited 
the  coast  before  the  trade  was  freely  opened  in  1750.  The 
companies  struggled  hard  from  the  beginning  to  maintain 
their  monopoly.  I  have  a  long  and  interesting  letter  —  a 
printed  broadside  —  dated  November  15,  1690,  addressed 
to  a  member  of  Parliament,  protesting  against  the  opening 
of  the  trade,  and  claiming  that  the  business  required  so 
much  capital  to  carry  it  on  that  it  could  be  conducted  to 
advantage  only  by  an  incorporated  company  and  a  joint 
stock.  In  the  year  1750  the  trade  was  thrown  open,  and 
Massachusetts  and  other  colonies  took  part  in  it. 

merican  Statistical  Association,  Vol.  I.,  p.  586. 


21 

One  of  the  best  authorities  on  the  subject  of  slavery  in 
Massachusetts  was  Dr.  Jeremy  Belknap  of  Boston,  an  emi 
nent  historical  scholar,  and  the  founder  of  the  Massachu 
setts  Historical  Society.  He  was  born  in  Boston  in  1744. 
In  order  to  correctly  answer  several  queries  from  Judge 
Tucker  of  Virginia  relating  to  slavery  in  Massachusetts, 
Dr.  Belknap,  in  1795,  addressed  some  forty  letters  of 
enquiry  to  eminent  and  venerable  citizens  of  the  State  ;  and 
from  the  letters  he  received  in  reply  and  from  personal 
conferences  with  others,  united  to  his  own  knowledge,  he 
drew  up  an  answer  to  Judge  Tucker,  which  was  published 
three  years  later  in  the  fourth  volume  of  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society  Collections.1  Concerning  the  slave-trade 
he  says  : — 

!The  letters  received  by  Dr.  Belknap,  of  this  correspondence,  or  so  many  of 
them  as  are  preserved,  were  printed  by  me  nine  years  ago  in  5  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society  Collections,  III.,  379-403.  Of  the  writers  of  these,  only 
seven  in  number,  five  have  given  their  opinions  on  the  subject  in  hand. 

Dr.  John  Eliot,  born  in  1754,  writes, — "  The  African  trade  was  carried  on; 
and  commenced  at  an  early  period;  to  a  small  extent  compared  with  Rhode 
Island,  but  it  made  a  considerable  branch  of  our  commerce  (to  judge  from  the 
number  of  our  still-houses,  and  masters  of  vessels  now  living  who  have  been  in 
the  trade).  It  declined  very  little  till  the  revolution.  Some  excellent  writings 
were  diffused  previously  to  this, and  the  sentiment  of  the  people  was  against  it; 
but  the  merchants  who  had  been  engaged  in  the  business  still  continued  sending 
their  vessels  for  slaves,  till  the  trade  was  prohibited  by  act  of  the  court,  1788." 

Samuel  Dexter  of  Weston,  the  father  of  Samuel  Dexter,  the  statesman,  born 
1726,  writes, — "  If  any  such  trade  really  existed  at  an  early  period,  I  may  have 
read  something  about  it,  but  can  now  recollect  nothing.  It  certainly  never 
was,  at  any  time,  carried  on  to  a  great  extent  in  Massachusetts.  Adventurers 
from  here  have  been  concerned  in  a  trade  from  Africa  to  the  West  Indies ;  but 
I  know  of  none  since  Thomas  Boylston,  now  in  London,  quitted  it.  McCarthy, 
and,  I  believe,  Job  Prince,  were  his  captains;  the  former,  divers  voyages. 
Vessels  from  Rhode  Island  have  brought  slaves  into  Boston.  Whether  any 
have  been  imported  in  that  town  by  its  own  merchants,  I  am  unable  to  say.  I 
have,  more  than  fifty  years  ago,  seen  a  vessel  or  two  with  slaves  brought  into 
Boston,  but  do  not  recollect  where  they  were  owned.  At  that  time  [1745]  it 
was  a  very  rare  thing  to  hear  the  trade  reprobated." 

Thomas  Pemberton,  born  1728,  writes,— "  We  know  that  a  large  trade  to 
Guinea  was  carried  on  for  many  years  by  the  citizens  of  the  Massachusetts 
colony,  who  were  the  proprietors  of  the  vessels  and  their  cargoes,  out  and 
home.  Some  of  the  slaves  purchased  in  Guinea,  and  I  suppose  the  greatest 
part  of  them,  were  sold  in  the  West  Indies,  some  were  brought  to  Boston  and 
Charlestown,  and  sold  to  town  and  country  purchasers  by  the  head.  .  .  .  This 
business  of  importing  and  selling  negroes  continued  till  nearly  the  time  of  the 


22 

4 'The  African  trade  was  never  prosecuted  to  a  great 
extent  by  the  merchants  of  Massachusetts.  No  records  or 
memorials  are  remaining  by  which  anything  respecting  it, 
in  the  last  century,  can  be  known.  .  .  .  By  the  inquiries 
which  I  have  made  of  our  oldest  merchants  now  living,  I 
cannot  find  that  more  than  three  ships  in  a  year,  belonging 
to  this  port,  were  ever  employed  in  the  African  trade.  The 
rum  distilled  here  was  the  main-spring  of  this  traffic.  The 
slaves,  purchased  in  Africa,  were  chiefly  sold  in  the  West 
Indies,  or  in  the  southern  colonies  ;  but  when  those  markets 
were  glutted,  and  the  price  low,  some  of  them  were  brought 
hither.  Very  few  whole  cargoes  ever  came  to  this  port. 
One  gentleman  says  he  remembers  two  or  three.  1  remem 
ber  one,  between  thirty  and  forty  years  ago,  which  con 
sisted  almost  wholly  of  children.  At  Rhode  Island  the 
rum  distillery  and  the  African  trade  were  prosecuted  to  a 
greater  extent  than  in  Boston ;  and  I  believe  no  other  sea 
port  in  Massachusetts  had  any  concern  in  the  slave  business. 
Sometimes  the  Rhode  Island  vessels,  after  having  sold  their 
prime  slaves  in  the  West  Indies,  brought  the  remnants  of 
their  cargoes  hither  for  sale.  Since  this  commerce  has 
declined  the  town  of  Newport  has  gone  to  decay.  ...  A 
few  only  of  our  merchants  were  engaged  in  this  kind  of 
traffic.  It  required  a  large  capital  and  was  considered  as 
peculiarly  hazardous,  though  gainful.  It  was  never  sup 
ported  by  popular  opinion  ;  and  the  voice  of  conscience  was 


controversy  with  Great  Britain.  The  precise  date  when  it  wholly  ceased  I 
cannot  ascertain,  but  it  declined  and  drew  to  a  period  about  the  time  the  British 
Parliament  attempted  to  enslave  the  colonists  by  arbitrary  acts." 

Judge  James  Winthrop,  born,  say  in  1751,  writes,—"  I  have  no  certain  infor 
mation,  but  believe  it  was  never  carried  on  to  any  considerable  extent  but  by 
way  of  Rhode  Island." 

Dr.  Holyoke,  a  physician  of  Salem,  born  1728,  to  Judge  Tucker's  second 
query,  ''if  the  African  slave  trade  was  carried  on  thither?"  writes, — "Yes, 
but  never,  I  believe,  to  any  great  extent.  When  it  commenced  I  know  not, 
nor  when  it  began  to  decline.  But  few  cargoes,  I  believe,  have  been  brought 
in  here  within  this  thirty-five  or  forty  years.  The  older  merchants  in  Boston 
can  best  answer  this  question.  The  slaves  which  were  brought  here  directly 
from  Africa  came,  for  the  most  part,  I  believe,  in  American  vessels.  But  the 
trade  was  not  generally  agreeable  to  the  people,  and  several  openly  expressed 
their  disapprobation  of  it.  Judge  Lowell  about  the  latter  end  of  the  last 
century  published  a  small  tract  against  it,  entitled  *  Joseph  Sold,  Memorial.' " 

As  has  been  said  above,  Dr.  Belknap  made  extensive  enquiries  of  our  oldest 
merchants  as  well  as  of  others,  whose  letters  are  not  preserved,  and  he  has 
given  the  results  of  bis  investigation  in  the  paper  noticed  above. 


23 

against  it.  A  degree  of  infamy  was  attached  to  the  charac 
ters  of  those  who  were  employed  in  it;  several  of  them,  in 
their  last  hours,  bitterly  lamented  their  concern  in  it." 

The  distilling  of  rum  was  one  of  the  industries  of  Massa- 

O 

chusetts,  and  continued  to  be  for  many  years.  This  article 
was  supplied  to  most  of  the  other  colonies ;  the  Indian 
trade,  the  New  England  and  Newfoundland  fisheries  as  well 
as  the  African  trade  consumed  it. 

Dr.  Belknap  supposed  that  Boston  was  the  only  sea-port 
in  Massachusetts  from  which  slave-ships  sailed.  But  Dr. 
Felt  has  furnished  memoranda  of  a  few  ships  which  sailed 
from  Salem,  an  important  commercial  port.  He  notices 
one  in  1763  which  sails  for  Guinea ;  one  in  1773  which  had 
reached  the  West  Indies  with  slaves  from  the  river  Gambia ; 
two  in  1785  ;  and  one  in  1787  are  found  engaged  in  this 
traffic;  and  in  1791  another  arrived  in  Surinam  from  the 
coast  of  Africa.  Visiting  the  coast  of  Africa  or  being 
employed  in  the  African  trade  might  not  necessarily  imply 
that  the  vessel  was  a  slaver.1 

That  these  vessels  occasionally  took  their  cargoes  into 
the  ports  of  the  southern  colonies  is  probable,  for  I  find  in 
the  instructions  given  to  the  captains  of  two  vessels  before 
sailing  on  their  dismal  voyages  a  clause  directing  them  in 
certain  contingences  to  go  to  Charleston  ;  and  Dr.  Belknap 
tells  us  that  the  slaves  were  chiefly  sold  in  the  West  Indies 
or  in  the  southern  colonies.  About  the  time  of  the  Stamp 
Act  Dr.  Belknap  says  the  trade  began  to  decline,  and  in 
1788  it  was  prohibited  by  law.  This  could  not  have  been 
done,  he  says,  previous  to  the  Revolution  as  the  governors 
sent  hither  were  instructed  not  to  consent  to  any  acts  made 
for  that  purpose. 

From  this  review  of  the  evidence,  allowing  it  to  weigh 
against  Massachusetts  all  it  will  possibly  bear,  it  is  certain 
that  the  share  which  that  colony  had  in  the  planting  of 
slavery  in  the  new  world  was  but  a  drop  in  the  bucket 


i  Annals  of  Salem,  Vol.  II.,  Salem,  1849. 


24 

compared  with  that  of  England.  Nor  is  this  all.  I  have 
no  wish  to  draw  any  invidious  comparisions  between  sister 
colonies,  but  I  am  here  compelled  to  say  that  Rhode  Island 
was  engaged  in  the  slave-trade  to  a  far  greater  extent  than 
Massachusetts  was.  We  have  seen  what  Dr.  Belknap  says 
on  this  point,  and  Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins  of  Newport,  in 
1776,  in  a  tract  advocating  the  abolition  of  slavery,1  says, 
"  As  Rhode  Island  has  been  more  deeply  interested  in  the 
slave-trade,  and  has  enslaved  more  of  the  poor  Africans 
than  any  other  colony  in  New  England,  it  has  been  to  the 
honor  of  that  colony  that  she  has  made  a  law  prohibiting 
the  importation  of  any  more  slaves."2 

If  we  take  into  account  only  the  350,000  slaves  estimated 
to  have  been  brought  into  the  southern  colonies  of  the 
United  States  during  all  the  period  we  have  been  reviewing, 
we  can  imagine  how  small  a  part  of  them  could  on  any 
probable  hypothesis  have  been  supplied  by  Massachusetts 
vessels. 

We  come  now  to  the  charge  that  after  slavery  in  Massa 
chusetts  was  found  not  to  pay  the  slaves  were  sold  down 
south.  Here  again  no  proof  is  offered,  and  no  case  is  cited. 
Probably  the  speaker  had  no  case  to  cite.  The  charge  is 
indefinite  as  to  time.  When  did  the  people  of  Massachu 
setts  find  that  slavery  did  not  pay  ?  Slavery  never  at  any 
time  was  profitable  here,  and  wrhite  servants  were  preferred 
when  they  could  be  obtained.  I  propose  now  to  show  what 
slavery  was  in  Massachusetts,  and  to  see  if  on  any  grounds 
of  probability  the  charge  above  made  could  be  true. 

We  have  seen  when  negro  slaves  were  first  brought  into 
the  colony — in  1637-38.  There  was  never  any  positive 
law  establishing  the  institution  here.  Negro  slavery  existed 
then  all  over  the  civilized  world  by  virtue  of  public  law  or 
custom.  It  came  into  Virginia  and  into  New  York,  that  is, 
Manhattan,  before  the  Massachusetts  colony  was  founded, 

1 A  Dialogue,  concerning  the  Slavery  of  the  Africans,  etc.,  Norwich,  1776,  p. 
57. 
2  The  prohibitory  law  was  not,  however,  passed  till  October,  1787. 


25 

and  into  all  the  other  colonies  from  time  to  time  since,  as 
the  tide  comes  in.  Mr.  Hurd  in  his  book  on  "The  Law 
of  Freedom  and  Bondage  in  the  United  States,"  L,  225, 
says:  — 

"The  involuntary  servitude  of  Indians  and  negroes  in  the 
several  colonies  originated  under  a  law  not  promulgated  by 
legislation,  and  rested  upon  prevalent  views  of  universal 
jurisprudence,  or  the  law  of  nations,  supported  by  the 
express  or  implied  authority  of  the  home  government." 

But  in  the  Massachusetts  Body  of  Liberties,  adopted  in 
1641 — the  first  code  of  laws  —  it  is  provided,  that  "there 
shall  never  be  any  bond  slavery,  villanage  or  captivity 
amongst  us  unless  it  be  lawful  captives  taken  in  just  wars 
and  such  strangers  as  willingly  sell  themselves  or  are  sold 
to  us."  And  this  law  was  substantially  reenacted  three 
several  times,  the  last  time  in  1672. l  Its  meaning  has  been 
the  subject  of  some  controversy,  but  in  view  of  the  above 
facts  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  was  regarded  by  its 
authors  as  a  limitation  of  slavery,  and  not  as  an  establish 
ment  of  the  right  to  hold  slaves.  By  its  terms  there  could 
be  but  two  classes  of  slaves,  prisoners  of  war  and  persons 
sold  or  purchased.  The  children  of  slaves  were,  therefore, 
by  law,  free.  I  have  never  seen  any  contemporary  adjudi 
cation  of  this  provision  of  law — and  by  "contemporary"  I 
mean  during  the  existence  of  slavery  in  Massachusetts — but 
later,  in  one  of  those  pauper  settlement  cases  which  came 
before  the  Supreme  Court  in  1796,  the  court  decided  that  a 
child  born  in  Massachusetts  of  a  slave  mother  was  by  the 
law  of  Massachusetts  free.2  Still  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  common  usage  in  Massachusetts  for  a  long  time  was 
to  regard  the  children  of  slave  mothers  as  slaves  in  fact.3 
Perhaps  this  was  inevitable.  The  child  needed  a  home  and 
required  to  be  fed  and  clothed,  and  as  it  grew  up  and 


13  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Col.,  VIII.,  231;  and  the  several  digests  of  laws. 

2  Littleton  v.  Tuttle,  4  Mass.  Rep.,  123. 

3  See  Judge  Parsous's  statement  in  1808,  in  4  Mass.,  128,  note,  referring  to  the 
Littleton  case  in  1796. 


26 

became  one  of  the  family  of  servants  it  came  to  be  regarded 
as  having  the  same  relation  to  the  family  as  its  mother  had, 
and  the  protection  of  its  master  was  thrown  round  it  to 
preserve  it  from  pauperism  and  crime.  And  whatever 
significance  may  have  been  attached  to  this  provision  of 
law  at  first,  it  seems  in  time  to  have  been  lost  sight  of. 

r-— "*  . 

I  Governor  Dudley  reports  in  1708  that  there  were  400 
1  servants  in  Boston,  one-half  of  whom  were  born  here.1 

Slavery  in  Massachusetts  was  different  from  what  it  was 
in  the  West  Indies,  or  even  in  the  Southern  States.2  It 
was  probably  as  mild  in  its  character  as  could  well  be  con 
sidering  the  material  which  constituted  it.  Of  course  it 
was  a  form  of  slavery — the  subjection  of  one  man's  will  to 
another  man's  will.  The  foundation  of  slavery,  as  old  as 
human  nature  itself,  says  Dr.  Maine  in  his  treatise  on 
Ancient  Law,  is  "the  simple  wish  to  use  the  bodily  powers 
of  another  person  as  a  means  of  ministering  to  one's  own 
ease  or  pleasure."  What  slavery  actually  was  here  can  be 
gathered,  not  so  much  perhaps  by  the  laws  which  were 
enacted  to  regulate  it,  as  from  the  knowledge  of  those 
who  lived  among  it,  and  who  knew  the  public  sentiment 
and  the  customs  of  society  respecting  it,  and  the  relations 
which  grew  out  of  them.  The  cases  adjudicated  in  the 
courts  were  rarely  reported,  but  their  influence  in  favor  of 
liberty  though  silent  was  sure.  In  simple  and  unmitigated 
slavery,  the  slave  has  no  rights.  In  Massachusetts  negroes 
were  generally  regarded  as  human  beings,  who  had  some 
rights  which  white  men  were  bound  to  respect. 

The  great  lawyer  and  statesman,  Nathan  Dane,  born  in 
1752,  and  living  in  the  midst  of  slavery  here  thirty  years, 
and  probably  knowing  many  persons  whose  memory  went 
back  to  170S,  when  there  were  but  550  slaves  in  the  colony, 
is  an  intelligent  witness  to  the  status  of  slavery  in  Massa 
chusetts. 

He  says  :  —  "The  negro  or  mulatto  slave  in  New  Eng- 

iFelt,  Stat.  Asso.,  p.  586. 

2  See  St.  George  Tucker's  Dissertation  on  Slavery,  Philadelphia,  1796, passim. 


27 

land  always  had  many  rights  which  raised  him  above  the 
absolute  slave."  The  master  had  no  right  to  his  life,  that 
is,  if  he  killed  him  he  was  punishable  as  for  killing  a  free 
man  ;  he  was  liable  to  his  slave's  action  for  beating,  wound 
ing,  or  immoderately  chastising  him,  as  much  as  for 
immoderately  correcting  an  apprentice,  or  a  child  ;  the  slave 
was  capable  of  holding  property,  as  a  devisee  or  a  legatee, 
as  the  damages  recovered  for  personal  injuries  ;  if  any  one 
took  the  slave  away  from  his  master  without  his  consent, 
the  master  could  not  sue  in  trover,  but  only  as  for  taking 
away  any  other  servant.  On  the  whole  the  slave  had  the 
right  of  property  and  of  life  as  apprentices  had,  and  the 
only  difference  was,  "an  apprentice  is  a  servant  for  time, 
and  the  slave  is  a  servant  for  life."  A  slave,  however, 
could  be  sold,  and  in  some  States  he  could  be  taken  in 
execution  for  his  master's  debts.1 

Slaves  were  sometimes  admitted  to  be  church  members 
and  sometimes  served  in  the  militia.  They  were  enlisted 
in  the  army  in  the  old  French  war.  They  were  competent 
witnesses  even  in  capital  trials  and  in  suits  of  other  slaves 
for  freedom.  The  right  to  marry  was  secured  to  them  in 
1705  by  a  statute  of  the  province,  and  their  banns  were 
published  like  those  of  white  persons.  In  1745  a  negro 
slave  obtained  from  the  Governor  and  Council  a  divorce  for 
his  wife's  adultery  with  a  white  man.2 


1  Dane's  Abr.,  II.,  313.    Mr.  Dane,  in  treating  of  Slavery  in  New  England, 
takes  these  illustrations,  with  slight  variations,  from  Reeve's  Domestic  Rela 
tions,  p.  340,  —  to  which  lie  refers  in  the  margin  of  his  book  —  that  is,  from  the 
chapter  headed, "  Of  Slaver}'  as  it  once  was  in  Connecticut."    Dr.  Moore,  in 
his  "  Notes  on  the  History  of  Slavery  in  Massachusetts,"  p.  100,  takes  exception 
to  some  of  these  rights  claimed,  as  applied  to  Massachusetts,  and  thinks  they 
are  not  sufficiently  fortified  by  reference  to  statutes  or  to  judicial  decisions. 
As  to  trover,  in  1763  trover  had  been  maintained  in  Massachusetts  for  a  negro. 
—  Quincy's  Rep.,  Gray's  note,  98. 

Governor  Hutchinson  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  in  May,  1771,  says, 
that "  slavery  by  the  provincial  laws  gives  no  right  to  the  life  of  the  servant,  and 
a  slave  here  is  considered  as  a  servant  would  be  who  had  bound  himself  for  a 
term  of  years  exceeding  the  ordinary  term  of  human  life;  and  I  do  not  know 
that  it  has  been  determined  he  may  not  have  property  in  goods,  notwithstand 
ing  he  is  called  a  slave."— Moore,  p.  132. 

2  Quincy's  Rep.,  Gray's  note  and  citations  on  slavery  in  Massachusetts,  p.  30. 


28 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  opportunities 
which  Dr.  Belknap  had  of  knowing  what  slavery  was  in 
Massachusetts.  In  1795  he  wrote  to  Judge  Tucker  of 
Virginia  as  follows:  —  "The  condition  of  our  slaves  was 
far  from  rigorous,  no  greater  labor  was  exacted  of  them 
than  of  white  people.  .  .  .  They  had  always  the  free 
enjoyment  of  the  Sabbath  as  a  day  of  rest.  ...  In  the 
maritime  towns  the  negroes  served  either  in  families  or  at 
mechanical  employments ;  and  in  either  case  they  fared  no 
worse  than  other  persons  of  the  same  class.  In  the  country 
they  lived  as  well  as  their  masters,  and  often  sat  down  at 
the  same  table  in  the  true  style  of  republican  equality."  l 

The  number  of  slaves  in  Massachusetts  was  never  large. 
Under  the  first  charter  they  were  inconsiderable.2  Under 
the  province  charter  there  were  in  1708,  550;  in  1720, 
2,000,  including  a  few  Indians;  in  1735,  2,600;  in  1742, 
1,514  in  Boston;  in  1754,  4,489;  in  1764-65,  5,779;  in 
1776,  5,249.  The  last  two  items  include  both  slaves  and 
free  blacks.  In  1790,  the  number  of  blacks,  by  the  United 
States  census,  was  6,001,  which  number  included,  says  Mr. 
Felt,  about  200  mixed  Indians.3  From  these  statistics  it  is 
reasonable  to  suppose  the  number  of  slaves  in  Massachu 
setts  never  much  exceeded  4,500,  at  any  one  time,  and  the 
greatest  proportion  they  ever  bore  to  the  whites  was  about 
one  to  forty  or  fifty,  say  one  slave  to  seven  or  eight  families. 

Such  according  to  the  best  evidence  now  attainable  was 
slavery  in  Massachusetts.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of 
slavery  existing  at  all  in  a  form  less  rigorous  than  that 
which  prevailed  here.  But  even  in  this  mild  form  it  was 


il  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  IV.,  200. 

2 The  statement  of  a  "  French  Protestant  Refugee,"  in  1689,  that  every  house 
in  Boston  has  one  or  two  negroes,  must  be  an  exaggeration  (Report,  etc.,  pub 
lished  in  Brooklyn,  1868,  p.  20).  Edward  Randolph,  who  was  always  extrava 
gant  in  his  statistics  relating  to  Massachusetts,  says,  writing  in  1676,  "There 
are  not  above  200  slaves  in  the  colony";  and  Governor  Bradstreet,  writing  in 
1680,  reported  "  about  120  negroes  in  the  colony." 

3  Felt,  Am.  Stat.  Asso.,  I.,  208-214;  Moore's  Notes,  p.  150;  1  Mass.  Hist.  Soc. 
Coll.,  IV.,  198. 


29 

never  in  harmony  with  the  general  sentiment  of  the  people.1 
This  appears  in 'many  ways.  In^the  first  place,  but  few 
ever  participated  in  it.  Then  follow  other  considerations. 
We  have  already  noticed  the  action  of  the  General  Court 
of  the  colony  in  1645  against  the  crime  of  kidnapping  or 
man-stealing  on  the  coast  of  Africa.  Then  in  1701  Boston 
instructed  her  representatives  to  use  their  influence  in  the 
General  Court  to  have  an  end  put  to  negroes  being  slaves, 
and  to  encourage  the  bringing  in  of  white  servants.  Boston 
at  this  time  contained  not  less  than  three-fourths  of  all  the 
slaves  in  the  province.  From  1755  to  1766  frequent  peti 
tions  were  sent  up  to  the  General  Court  from  Boston, 
Salem,  and  from  other  parts  of  the  State  for  the  suppression 
of  slavery.  In  1766  John  Adams  says  he  was  present  at 
the  trial  of  a  suit  of  a  negro  woman  against  her  master  for 
her  liberty,  and  that  he  had  often  heard  of  such  suits 
before  —  and  we  know  that  from  that  time  forward  such 
suits  were  frequent,  and  juries  always  found  for  the  negro. 
John  Adams  said  he  "never  knew  a  jury  by  a  verdict  to 
determine  that  a  man  was  a  slave."5  In  1771  and  twice  in 
1774  the  legislature  passed  bills  to  prohibit  the  importation 

!It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  negro  race,  bond  or  free,  was  not  regarded 
here  as  a  desirable  element  of  the  population.  They  were  generally  ignorant 
and  degraded,  and  required  to  be  looked  after  and  cared  for  as  children,  and 
strict  regulations  were  made  to  ensure  order  among  them,  to  see  that  they 
should  have  employment,  and  to  provide  for  a  healthy  sanitary  condition. 
Special  reference  is  here  made  to  the  Town  Records  and  the  Selectmen's 
Records  of  the  Town  of  Boston,  printed  in  the  Reports  of  the  Record  Com 
missioners,  for  the  orders  adopted  to  secure  these  desirable  ends.  Strangers 
were  sometimes  warned  to  depart,  but  in  this  respect  white  and  black  fared 
alike,  it  being  a  precaution  taken  to  avoid  the  contingent  liability  of  supporting 
paupers.  For  a  like  reason  a  law  of  the  province  in  1703  forbade  the  manu 
mission  of  a  slave  unless  the  master  gave  bonds  to  support  him  if  he  came  to 
want. 

A  few  years  after  the  abolition  of  slavery  here,  in  order  to  prevent  an 
irruption  of  negroes  into  the  State,  the  legislature,  on  the  26  of  March,  1788, 
passed  a  law  requiring  all  negroes  not  citizens  of  any  State  in  the  union,  but 
resident  here,  to  depart  in  two  months,  under  a  severe  penalty.  "  The  design 
of  this  law,"  says  Dr.  Belknap,  "  is  to  prevent  deserting  negroes  from  resorting 
hither  in  hopes  to  obtain  freedom,  and  then  being  thrown  as  a  dead  weight  on 
this  community." 

25  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  III.,  401,  402;  Hildreth,  II.,  563-565. 


30 

of  slaves,  both  of  which  failed  to  receive  the  assent  of  the 
Royal  Governor.1 

In  1776,  September  17,  two  slaves  taken  on  board  an 
English  prize  ship  were  brought  into  Salem  and  ordered  to 
be  sold,  but  the  General  Court  forbade  the  sale  and  ordered 
such  prisoners  to  be  treated  like  all  others ;  and  the  House 
resolved  "that  the  selling  and  enslaving  of  the  human 
species  is  a  direct  violation  of  the  natural  rights  alike  vested 
in  them  by  their  Creator,  and  utterly  inconsistent  with  the 
avowed  principles  on  which  this,  and  the  other  States  have 
carried  on  their  struggle  for  liberty."2 

This  public  sentiment  against  slavery  at  last  became  so 
strong  that  it  brought  about  its  abolition.  It  was  largely 
stimulated  by  the  controversy  with  Great  Britain,  at  which 
time  the  whole  subject  of  freedom  was  opened.  John 

1  Several  attempts  were  made  iu  Massachusetts  to  abolish  slavery  by  legisla 
tion,  and  petitions  were  presented  to  the  General  Court  from  time  to  time 
asking  for  its  abolition ;  several  of  these  came  from  the  negroes  themselves. 
In  June,  1777,  the  question  again  came  up  before  the  legislature  and  a  commit 
tee  of  the  house  was  chosen  to  prepare  a  letter  to  the  Congress  sitting  at  Phila 
delphia  on  the  subject  and  report  it  to  the  House.  They  say,  "  This  question 
has  at  different  times  for  many  years  past  been  a  subject  of  debate  in  former 
houses,  without  any  decision  on  the  main  principle,  and  although  they  have 
generally  appeared  as  individuals  convinced  of  the  rectitude  of  the  measure, 
nothing  further  has  been  done  than  to  have  a  Bill  before  them,  which  after 
some  debate,  from  various  circumstantial  obstacles  and  embarrassments,  has 
subsided.  The  last  House  resumed  this  question  in  consequence  of  a  petition 
from  a  number  of  Africans,  and  ordered  a  Bill  to  be  brought  in,  which  after 
one  reading  was  referred  over  to  this  House,  and  is  now  before  us,  and  has 
been  considered  in  a  first  and  second  reading.  Convinced  of  the  justice  of  the 
measure,  we  are  restrained  from  passing  it  only  from  an  apprehension  that  our 
brethren  in  the  other  colonies  should  conceive  there  was  an  impropriety  in 
our  determining  on  a  question  which  may  in  its  nature  and  operation  be  of 
extensive  influence  without  previously  consulting  your  Honors.  We  therefore 
have  ordered  the  Bill  to  lie,  and  ask  the  attention  of  your  Honors  to  this  matter, 
that,  if  consistent  with  the  union  and  harmony  of  the  United  States,  we  may 
follow  the  dictates  of  our  own  understandings  and  feelings,  at  the  same  time 
assuring  your  Honors  that  we  have  such  a  sacred  regard  to  the  union  and  har 
mony  of  the  United  States  as  to  conceive  ourselves  under  obligations  to  refrain 
from  every  measure  that  should  have  a  tendency  to  injure  that  union  which  is 
the  basis  and  foundation  of  our  defence  and  happiness."  —  Proc.  Mass.  Hist. 
Soc.,  X.,  332,  333.  After  the  reading  of  this  letter  it  was  "  ordered  to  lie,"  and 
the  records  are  thereafter  silent  respecting  it. 

2Moore's  Notes,  p.  148,  et  seq.;  Felt's  Salem,  II.,  278;  Washburn's  Lecture, 
Lowell  Inst.  Course,  p.  210. 


31 

Adams  says  they  talked  about  "the  rights  of  mankind," 
and  afterwards  omitted  the  kind.  Some  masters  voluntarily 
liberated  their  slaves,  and  some  slaves  claimed  their  liberty 
in  the  courts,  and  by  their  counsel  pleaded  their  rights  as  the 
King's  subjects  ;  that  by  the  law  of  England  no  man  could 
be  deprived  of  his  liberty  but  by  the  judgment  of  his  peers. 
He  claimed  the  common  law  right,  which  was  ignoring 
wholly  the  civil  law  on  which  slavery  rested.  And  Judge 
Dana  told  Dr.  Belknap,  as  I  infer  from  a  note  of  the  latter, 
that  on  some  occasions  the  plea  was,  that  though  the 
slavery  of  parents  be  admitted  yet  no  disability  of  that 
kind  could  descend  to  children.1  This  would  seem  to  be  a 
survival  of  the  rule  of  limitation  announced  in  the  Body  of 
Liberties.  But  such  judgments  or  opinions  could  have  had 
no  legal  effect  beyond  the  immediate  case  before  the  court. 
I  have  already  quoted  the  remark  of  John  Adams,  that  he 
never  knew  a  case  in  which  the  jury  found  against  the 
negro. 

The  slight  hold  which  slavery  had  upon  Massachusetts 
about  the  period  of  the  Eevolutionary  War,  and  at  the  time 
the  Constitution  of  the  State  was  adopted,  in  1780,  was 
wholly  loosened  by  the  judicial  decision  in  the  well-known 
case  of  Quork  Walker,  three  years  later,  in  which  reference 
was  made  to  the  now  celebrated  clause  in  the  Bill  of  Rights 
to  the  new  constitution  of  the  State.  But  it  is  a  note 
worthy  fact  that  the  arguments  of  counsel  in  favor  of  the 
slave  in  that  case,  in  one  of  the  trials,  as  per  brief  of  Levi 
Lincoln,  printed  by  me  a  few  years  ago  in  5  Mass.  Hist. 
Soc.  Coll.,  III.,  438,  barely  alluded  to  the  Constitution, 
but  base  their  pleas  almost  wholly  on  what  we  now  call  the 
higher  law  doctrine — that  there  was  never  any  law  in  the 
State  establishing  slavery,  and  that  all  laws  against  natural 
rights  are  void.  And  Judge  Cushing's  charge  and  opinion 
in  the  final  suit  before  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  are 
much  the  same.2 

i  Belknap  to  Judge  Tucker  as  above. 
.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.,  XIII.,  294. 


32 

What  the  immediate  practical  effect  of  this  decision  was 
upon  the  master  and  slave  we  know  pretty  well.  That 
many  slaves  remained  with  their  masters  is  certain.  The 
decision  was,  no  doubt,  generally  welcomed,  and  what 
slaves  wished  to  leave  did  so. 

Dr.  Belknap  tells  us  of  the  condition  of  the  liberated 
slaves.  Many  of  those  in  the  country  who  left  their  masters 
came  to  the  seaport  towns.  Often  their  fate  was  a  hard  one, 
and  physically  their  last  condition  was  worse  than  the  first. 

The  foregoing  statement  of  what  slavery  was  in  Massa 
chusetts  and  how  it  ended,  is  nearly  conclusive  evidence  of 
the  falsity  of  the  charge  we  are  considering.  But  this  is 
not  all.  Dr.  Belknap  tells  us  that  "for  the  negro  to  be 
sold  to  the  West  Indies  or  to  Carolina  was  the  highest 
punishment  that  could  be  inflicted  or  threatened."1 

The  horror  with  which  the  kidnapping  of  negroes  was 
regarded,  that  is  the  decoying  of  them  out  of  the  State  for 
sale  down  south,  or  in  the  West  Indies,  was  shown  in  a 
case  which  occurred  in  the  month  of  February,  1788. 
One  Avery,  a  native  of  Connecticut,  by  the  assistance  of 
another  fellow,  decoyed  three  unsuspecting  black  men  on 
board  a  vessel  in  Boston  harbor,  and  sent  them  down  into 
the  hold  to  work.  While  thus  employed  the  vessel  set  sail 
and  went  to  sea,  having  been  previously  cleared  for  Marti- 
nico.  Governor  Hancock  and  Mr.  L'Etombe,  the  French 
consul,  at  once  wrote  letters  to  the  governors  of  all  the 
islands  in  the  West  Indies  in  favor  of  the  negroes.  The 
men  were  offered  for  sale  at  the  Danish  island  of  St. 
Bartholomew.  They  told  their  story  publicly  and  the 
governor  of  the  island  prevented  the  sale.  They  were 
liberated  and  arrived  at  Boston  on  the  29th  of  July  follow 
ing,  which  was  a  day  of  jubilee,  says  Dr.  Belknap,  not  only 
among  their  countrymen,  but  among  all  the  friends  of  jus 
tice  and  humanity.2 

il  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  IV.,  200. 

2  Dr.  Belknap  in  1  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  IV.,  204,  205. 

Advantage  was  taken  of  this  affair  to  renew  the  application  to  the  legislature 


33 

What  a  singular  phenomenon  would  be  presented  of  a 
community,  which  abolished  slavery  because  they  believed 
it  was  wrong,  and  then  turned  round  and  sold  their  slaves 
into  a  worse  bondage. 

But  the  census  refutes  the  story.  If  the  negroes  were 
run  down  south,  they  came  back  again  to  be  counted.  I 
have  already  cited  the  facts  of  the  census.  In  1776,  seven 
years  before  the  abolition  of  slavery,  there  were  5,249 
blacks  in  the  colony.  ^In  1790  the  United  States  census 
finds  6,001  colored  persons  here,  which  number  includes 
some  200  mixed  Indians.1  Here  they  are,  and  here  they 
lived  and  died. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  there  has  been,  here  and  there, 
an  isolated  case  of  a  slave  being  sold  to  go  south,  but  that 
does  not  sustain  the  charge.  Crimes  are  committed  in 
every  community.  "There  are  traditions  of  slavery  and 
slave-holding  times  lingering  in  many  families  and  villages 
in  Massachusetts.  Slavery,  its  incidents  and  evils  are  dis 
cussed  in  town  histories,  sermons  and  other  writings,  but 


for  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  that  is,  to  prohibit  any  citizen  of  the  State 
from  pursuing  the  business.  The  colored  population  too  joined  in  the  petition, 
and  Dr.  Belknap  and  other  clergymen  lent  their  influence.  An  act  was  passed 
March  26, 1788,  "  to  prevent  the  slave-trade,  and  granting  relief  to  the  families 
of  such  unhappy  persons  as  may  be  kidnapped  or  decoyed  away  from  this 
Commonwealth."  It  was  enacted  "  that  no  citizen,  residing  within  this  Com 
monwealth  shall,  for  himself  or  any  other  person,  either  as  master,  factor, 
supercargo,  owner,  or  hirer  in  whole  or  in  part,  of  any  vessel,  directly  or 
indirectly,  import  or  transport,  or  buy,  or  sell,  or  receive  on  board  his  or  their 
vessel,  with  intent  to  cause  to  be  imported  or  transported  any  of  the  inhabitants 
of  any  state  or  kingdom  in  Africa,  as  slaves,  or  servants  for  term  of  years,  on 
penalty  of  fifty  pounds  for  every  person  so  received  on  board  .  .  .  and  two 
hundred  pounds  for  every  vessel  fitted  out  with  such  intent  .  .  .  and  all  insur 
ance  made  on  such  vessels  shall  be  void."  1  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  IV.,  202, 
203.  Dr.  Belknap,  in  March,  1790,  speaks  of  a  person,  who,  to  evade  the  laws 
of  the  State  had  gone  to  France  "  to  fit  out  his  ship  for  the  detested  business." 
He  had  begged  a  copy  of  Clarkson's  Essay  to  send  to  this  man,  hoping  it  might 
"  serve  to  gall  his  conscience  a  little,"  and  some  time  or  other  "  to  bring  him  to 
serious  recollection."  5  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  III.,  216. 

ll  do  not  refer  above  to  the  census  returns  of  1784,  giving  4,377  blacks,  nor 
to  those  of  1786,  giving  4,371  blacks,  because  Mr.  Felt  says  these  returns  are 
made  without  allowances  for  such  "  as  may  have  been  either  deflcient  or  not 
made  at  all."  (Statist.  Asso.,  I.,  214.) 


34 

after  careful  examination  and  inquiry,"  says  an  intelligent 
and  careful  investigator  of  this  subject,  "I  have  been  able 
to  find  but  one  instance  of  selling  slaves  to  go  south.  In 
Wilbraham,  a  remote  town  nearly  bordering  on  the  State 
of  Connecticut,  there  were  five  slaves  at  the  time  of  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  in  1780,  and  two  of  these,  it 
is  said,  were  decoyed  by  their  masters  into  Connecticut  and 
thence  on  board  a  vessel  at  Hartford,  which  dropped  down 
the  river  and  they  were  never  more  heard  of  in  Wilbraham." 
The  story,  from  the  position  of  the  parties  involved,  seems 
almost  incredible,  but  the  particulars  are  told  by  Dr.  II.  P. 
Stebbins  in  his  "  Historical  Address,"  at  the  centennial 
celebration  of  the  town  of  Wilbraham  in  June,  1863.  I 
had  heard  of  this  affair,  and  have  searched  for  other  cases. 
I  have  in  my  own  library  a  large  number  of  town  histories 
and  centennial  addresses,  including  that  of  Dr.  Stebbins, 
referred  to  above,  and  I  have  examined  and  caused  to  be 
examined  for  me,  altogether,  some  one  hundred  and  fifty 
town  histories  of  this  State  for  this  purpose ;  but  the  case 
of  Wilbraham  stands  alone.1 


1  Since  this  paper  was  read  before  this  Society  I  have  had  a  favorable  oppor 
tunity  of  examining  further  into  the  truth  of  this  Wilbraham  story,  and  it 
seems  to  me  very  doubtful.  Tb.3  author  of  the  address  was  certainly  mistaken 
in  some  of  his  alleged  facts,  and  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  main  story  —  that 
the  two  negroes  referred  to  were  sold  down  south  — is  not  true. 


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